OFFICIAL 2012 Giro d'Italia route unveiled in Milan

2012 Giro d'Italia route unveiled in Milan

Leaked info last week was CORRECT as was shown in this day’s GIRO Presentation in Milano !

Great to see that the Third Etape is Dedicated to Wouter Weylandt , this being the third year that his name will be prominent . All of you will recall that he won the third etape in 2010 and died this year on the Passo Boca during the third Etape , now 2012 , and perhaps future editions also , will memorize his contribution to the Giro’s History !

I know that there was an Event in Italy during September to celebrate his contribution to the relationship between Belgium and Italy . The original intention was to run said event on his September Birthdate !

Below once again the basic “ Etape details ”:

2012 Giro d'Italia, May 5-May 27
May 5, stage 1: Herning - Herning ITT, 8.7 km
May 6, stage 2: Herning - Herning, 206 km
May 7, stage 3: Horsens - Horsens, 190 km
May 8: Rest day
May 9, stage 4: Verona - Verona TTT, 32.2 km
May 10, stage 5: Modena - Fano, 199 km
May 11, stage 6: Urbino - Porto Sant'Elpidio, 207 km
May 12, stage 7: Recanati - Rocca di Cambio, 202 km
May 13, stage 8: Sulmona - Lago Laceno, 229 km
May 14, stage 9: San Giorgio nel Sannio - Frosinone, 171 km
May 15, stage 10: Civitavecchia - Assisi, 187 km
May 16, stage 11: Assisi - Montecatini Terme, 243 km
May 17, stage 12: Seravezza - Sestri Levante, 157 km
May 18, stage 13: Savona - Cervere, 121 km
May 19, stage 14: Cherasco - Cervinia, 205 km
May 20, stage 15: Busto Arsizio - Lecco/Pian dei Resinelli, 172 km
May 21: rest day
May 22, stage 16: Limone sul Garda - Falzes/Pfalzen, 174 km
May 23, stage 17: Falzes/Pfalzen - Cortina d'Ampezzo, 187 km
May 24, stage 18: San Vito di Cadore - Vedelago, 139 km
May 25, stage 19: Treviso - Alpe di Pampeago, 197km
May 26, stage 20: Caldes/Val di Sole - Passo dello Stelvio, 218 km
May 27, stage 21: Milan - Milan ITT, 31.5 km


Those of you who are involved with “ Couchsurfing ” or know people that participate could help me by putting me in touch with people who are able to assist me with accommodation within 20km or so of each depart point . Would prefer to ride this last Giro without a support vehicle since the past two events have generally been hampered by having to travel back to the car at the end of each day ! Not much fun to be had with riding 200+km each day !

WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS 2011

 

 

 

 

Copenhagen is where HTC Team are showing the “ Sponsors “ that they have missed the boat ! Nearly every race has shown the depth of Talent in this team ! That is just the Individual Time Trials thus far and the Road Races are yet to come with speculation that “ Ina “ will win the Ladies and of course “ King Cav “ will win the men’s Elite Race !

Whilst this is going on though the Media is having a feast with the recent revelations timed to perfection so as to maximise their impact ! Started as usual with the French and Italian Media and then was picked up by Cyclingnewsforum on a new thread :

 

 

 

http://forum.cyclingnews.com/showthread.php?t=15363&page=10  

From there it got onto Twitter and now there are reports in Magazines such as Sporting News Illustrated :

 

 

 

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/more/09/21/Armstrong-paid-doping-physician.ap/index.html?eref=si_mostpopular  

Seems that “ ESPN “ the Us sports channel has got into the act as well , but I have no link for that at this time , guess someone on CNF ( mushroom farmers anonymous ) will put that out in the forum in the near future .

Disturbing for me is that there will be mud flying and “ Livestrong “ will get a bath , which will be unfair to ALL those who have contributed their efforts and monies and believed in the “ Good Work “ that could be done by this foundation ! Typical of this possibility is this link that was mentioned as “ with this “ in item #87 on the CNF thread ! Already tweeted @premierMikeRann with a link to this story .

Lance is reported to have said “ certain things “ whether they are reported correctly and in context or twisted to suit the story , we can only speculate but more questions are emerging as time passes . That Flandis and Shamilton are “ bitter and convicted ex racers “ has been a defence used by those supporting Lance & co but if as suggested there are “ Tax Evasion “ matters and these guys had monies in the scheme that they did not wish to lose caused them to keep quiet is speculation at this time .

Not being in Copenhagen through matters beyond my control is somewhat annoying although the weather in Austria has turned to the good once again and thus am getting plenty of cycling done .

Snow to 600 m

Blogger continues to limit access and today with the winter arriving early i am trying to clean up the " Posts " made earlier that have typo errors . Sunday was full on rain and low visibility and today is not much better ! At some point i will have to go find another access point with my laptop to post the photos that i have accumulated but " Blogger " facilities are not allowing the " upload " from my b/band . Fact is the signal strength ( 12.8kb/sec ) is such that " Fatcyclist's latest blog post " did not appear but when i hit " feed " on his header i get the last 10 items in seconds for about 6MB ! Please explain that for contrariness !

Twitter from @spokesmen tells me that Copenhagen is sunny with 10c weather and the weather chart ( metoffice )shows heavy rain and 13c so will the women's or the men's TT get the forecast adverse conditions ?

Saturday was a sunny warm start with me leaving the house at 10ish and heading east in time to find Thomas R. heading west and a quick U turn had me up with him as he was setting out to ride " Intervals " . He says that 2012 is sorted but the news will come later and that he enjoyed the Vuelta . Coming into Munster from the east is a short incline and this always knocks my pace down so i bid him a good day and when i crested i saw that he was 100m up the road already . With a nice day i had already told him i would head up to Achensee and this 7km climb is steady rather than steep but runs alongside the cog railway in places . Suffice to say i was waiting to photo the train at the top .

Around Achensee ( the lake ) are some really nice walking trails but the west side of the lake heading north is reserved for walkers only but no doubt those with mountain bikes will give it a go . West of the village of Petsau are some valleys which are National Park Areas and have tolls for all vehicles except pedal bikes and there are speed limits for these narrow roads . Suffice to say there are no speed cameras and walkers wander all over the road even on blind corners . With three distinct destinations there is plenty of area to investigate . The longest of these roads rises gradually with width for a Pullman Coach but not enough to pass a cyclist .

So along comes a coach in a hurry and just as he decides to pass anyway there is a car coming the other side of the road , so he slams the brakes and pulls back . Road continues upwards and when it widened for several hundred metres i signalled for him to pass but he hung back until the road narrowed then decided to go for it and of course in touching my shoulder had me on the stone verge , staying upright whilst he continued was challenging and of course he had no idea until i pointed out the disturbed dust on the side of the vehicle when i caught them in the parking area .

As usual it was the " Entschuldigung ( excuse me ) " attitude but no injury , no case to answer attitude ! Signalling as a curtesy when the road was wide enough is one thing , forcing through pushing the bike rider aside is quite another . As to the passengers , none were prepared to speak English and of course most would have been asleep or unaware of the risk even had they seen a cyclist in front of their conveyance .

Several hours of riding earlier in the week took me over the Alpbach climb which I have mentioned in previous posts but as I descended into the Zillertal I found a road I had not ridden up before . The sign said 7.2km of Vogelsveg so decided to try my luck thinking that it would connect to another road as do most of these roads . Climbing through new scenery and the forests in coolish conditions on quite steep gradients kept me warm but as it proved the road was a deadend unless you were on a mountain bike , so a descent to the valley and onto Kaltenbach was the result . By midday the sun wa out and another warm day ensued .

Whilst walking these areas in the past several seasons whilst forbidden to ride the bike due to the Embolisms treatment I had thought I had found all the roads that are available but it appears there are still a few more roads to be found . During this ride I took a few photos of the road surface conditions that you face as you descend , easy enough to avoid going up but a bit nerve racking for those on a race bike on a fast descent . One of the jobs to be done with the inclement weather will be changing the brake blocks on the bikes and sorting a slight noise from front wheel braking which could be the need to true the front wheel’s alignment . Spokes are tight so there may be a slight rim buckle to sort with the wheel truing equipment / gadget , as running the wheel against the blocks doesn’t indicate any obvious anomaly .

Copenhagen w/out the Queen of Cycling !

 

Regrettably Jeannie will not be at Copenhagen and the event will be diminished by her absence since she is the most accomplished woman racer of our generation !

 

As I write I have just discovered this item :

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/jeannie-longo-opts-to-miss-world-championships

　

Which news leads me to wonder whether the effort to get to Copenhagen is worthwhile . Each time I go to the “ Tour de Romandie “ and previous World Championship Road Races I have enjoyed the opportunity to ride with Jeannie and Patrice , the husband . Perhaps I have been lucky and it is serendipity but I do not set out with the intention to find them ! Indeed the first meeting at the Sydney 2000 Olympic was pure chance . Living on my friend’s yacht in Rose Bay , Sydney I would come ashore then float around on the bike not making any plan other than to enjoy the warm and sunny weather .

Centennial Park being the Road race start and finish was an obvious attraction and I enjoyed catching up with Dave Duffield on his Foldup bike , and Lance several times although he preferred to ride with Tony Doyle .

Eric Worlberg of Canada and the Danish & Austrian Mens’ teams and Italian and Dutch Womens’ Teams were some of the groups I was able to show the Race and TT courses . Early on I was able to say to the Aussies that Team Mobile were to be watched as I felt sure from seeing them ride together that they would work for one another rather than their individual Nations . Of course who was I to say this and was ignored and so the Podium was Team Telecom ! As Jan followed Vinky to the Podium I called out “ Gut Gemackte “ and Jan looked across and then pointed me out to Klody . When the presentation was over the Bouquets soared in my direction , to get Jan’s I had to reach out nearly toppling but Andy’s throw was just about perfect . These I later passed to the son and dAughter of a family who had befriended me as their yacht was in the same bay as the one I was living aboard . As time has passed regrettably I have lost touch with both parties with their moving house during the intervening years . Hard to imagine that 11 years have passed so quickly !

Before the Men’s Presentation ceremony I had placed my bike on top of the concrete support for the flagpole I was using as a support so my view over the two metre fence was unimpeded but a Police Inspector tried to tell me to come down as I was “ at risk “ and I later had him ask me who I was to receive the flowers . Of course there were some who made me welcome and one was David Millar who pulled alongside me after the TT Medal Presentation in the British team car and introduced me to James Quigly the Track Gold Medalist ! Getting kissed by all three Women after their Medal Presentation was a special moment as well particularly since I had ridden with them all as they surveyed the routes . Leotin also pointed me out to her parents whom I had met in Team Celebration at the 1998 World Champs , but whilst we waved I did not get to greet them as they were in the VIP enclosure .

Meeting Ray Godwin and Michael Milton was another interesting experience since I have caught up with them both in various parts of Europe . Michael at Para Ski Races and Ray at various Road Race Events . El Diablo was also a character that I came across and helped out as you can see from the Blog post about him .

 

 Haile Gebreselassie ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haile_Gebrselassie

) was one of the runners whom I met as they used Centennial Park for training as did some of the Para Hand Bikers , so you can see it was a mixed bunch of Olympic Competitors that I came across but not unremarkably I came across Shane Warne sitting in the back of a Groundsmans’ vehicle as it drove through the park to the Sydney Cricket Ground . On the Thursday night before the opening of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games I rode up to the Sydney Town Hall and met the Waugh Brothers after one of them had run with the “ Olympic Torch “ .